Our projects are aimed at furthering our understanding of why people with damage to particular brain areas do not always show the same symptoms; i.e., why there are individual differences in response to particular brain lesions. We are hypothesizing that a number of factors can be involved, and these factors can be adequately studied by using animal models and testing the animals under highly controlled conditions. Some of the factors that we are presently examining are age at the time of insult, the training history of the subject, the role of early-life malnutrition, and the speed of growth of the lesion. All of these variables seem to be capable of influencing the performance of animals (individuals) with brain damage. In addition to a wide variety of experiments of this nature, we are asking whether brain lesions affect longevity and the diseases to which individuals may succumb, and whether this may have something to do with the development of an anti-brain antibody. We are also working on an animal model of a human neurological disease called "familial dysautonomia", and with pharmacological agents that we suspect may attenuate some of the effects of brain injury. In short, our program deals with the concept of recovery of junction following brain damage, and with the issue of variability in response to seemingly comparable injuries.